9 replies to this topic

[Shadrack]

On my way to becoming an Android user. Have some questions/concerns in regards to syncing everything with my Mac. Thanks for the help.

I would like to continue using my Mac apps to manage my personal data. These consist of:
Mail, Calendar, Contacts, Notes, Reminders, iTunes, and iPhoto.

There is nothing to Mail, as I've been using GMail since early beta. Playing around with Google Music Manager, it seems to do a reasonable job at copying all my music to the cloud and keeping my playlist sync. So both of those are sorted out.

Calendar and Contacts - I currently use iCloud for both of these. Reason being, I prefer the web interface over Google's web interface (when I'm on my work computer or w/e). Also, I have my iPad currently setup with iCloud. Since iCloud uses CalDav and CardDav protocols, I'm assuming that I can add these to my Android device somehow? Idk... I might go through the labor of switching to Google for these two things. I've manually sync'd my contacts with GMail periodically for awhile now. Does anyone have any experience with iCloud syncing on Android?

Notes - I'm thinking about ditching and just using Evernote.

Reminders - Something I DO really like and am not sure what Android has to offer. I haven't really found a "tasks" solution that will sync and work with the Mac "Reminders" app. Suggestions welcome.

iPhoto - I'm familiar with what Google Picasa has to offer as I use it regularly day-in-and-day-out at work. It is a really nice piece of free software for organizing your photos. That being said, I've used my iPhoto for my personal photos for so long that I don't really want to change directions at this point (so many faces, etc). What are my syncing options with iPhoto and Android? Would exporting the photos I want accessible to Web Albums be the best options? I could also export to Flickr (which wouldn't require a plugin to be installed on iPhoto.)

Thank you for your input.

[Shadrack]

So..Calendar and Contact syncing with Google was pretty trivial to setup. I think I'm going to stick with the defaults on that for now. Still would like input on Reminders and iPhoto syncing.

[SMELTN]

My question to add on your top is about Photos as well. Now that I have an Android phone but still have an iPad. How can I "sync" the photos and be able to see the photos I take on the camera from my iPad? Or from other locations in general?

[Shadrack]

Hmm... I can't find a photo syncing solution. Not even Google Picasa really "syncs" with Android.

Seems like there are basically 3 options that I've found:
* Use the Flickr "sharing" and export photos to that service
* Install an iPhoto plugin to export to Google Picasa Web Albums
* Drag and drop photos to your Dropbox

I'm not sure if the iPhoto plugin to export to Google Picasa Web Albums even exists anymore.

It isn't really THAT big of a deal. I've just become use to my photos being accessible from all my devices effortlessly. I take a picture with my iPhone, *bam* it is on my Mac and iPad. I download photos from my digital camera to my Mac, *bam* it is on my iPad, and iPhone. I tag some faces in iPhoto, those tags are transferred to my devices.

[SMELTN]

yeah I am still looking as well. We are looking at giving our in laws our iPad 1st Gen for Christmas since we have the 2 and Mini and since the iPad1 doesnt have 6.0 it doesnt get the shared photostream, so I would like to be able to share photos with them without the hassle.

[guitmz]

For photos I use a Ubuntu One account (since it has more space than my Dropbox) with autoupload feature... It's a way out.. Dropbox app also has the auto upload feature

[SMELTN]

guitmz, on 05 December 2012 - 16:30, said:

For photos I use a Ubuntu One account (since it has more space than my Dropbox) with autoupload feature... It's a way out.. Dropbox app also has the auto upload feature

yeah but with the dropbox auto upload isn't that only for the PC? Or does the "app" version on Android/iOS do that as well now?

[Shadrack]

guitmz, on 05 December 2012 - 16:30, said:

For photos I use a Ubuntu One account (since it has more space than my Dropbox) with autoupload feature... It's a way out.. Dropbox app also has the auto upload feature

It isn't so much the question of "how am I going to get my photos back to my Mac from my Android device". I'll probably use Dropbox as a type of "cloud" photo transfer tool or perhaps just periodically plug it in via USB like it were one of my other cameras.

The issue is that I've committed myself to using iPhoto for so long that I have accumulated a lot of photos that are organized in albums and have face tags throughout. Its the Photo files + organization + my meta data that I would like synchronized... Its about 8GB worth of photos though. Maybe it isn't worth having my whole photo collection on my Android phone which will only be 16GB.

What photo features does Ubuntu One have? Can things be organized or is it a folder/file free-for-all? I try to avoid organizing folder structures for music and photos these days...

[guitmz]

SMELTN, on 05 December 2012 - 16:33, said:

yeah but with the dropbox auto upload isn't that only for the PC? Or does the "app" version on Android/iOS do that as well now?

The dropbox can syn on the android app also at least on android! tested already but stuck with ubuntu one app.

Shadrack, on 05 December 2012 - 16:53, said:

It isn't so much the question of "how am I going to get my photos back to my Mac from my Android device". I'll probably use Dropbox as a type of "cloud" photo transfer tool or perhaps just periodically plug it in via USB like it were one of my other cameras.

The issue is that I've committed myself to using iPhoto for so long that I have accumulated a lot of photos that are organized in albums and have face tags throughout. Its the Photo files + organization + my meta data that I would like synchronized... Its about 8GB worth of photos though. Maybe it isn't worth having my whole photo collection on my Android phone which will only be 16GB.

What photo features does Ubuntu One have? Can things be organized or is it a folder/file free-for-all? I try to avoid organizing folder structures for music and photos these days...

Well the ubuntu one app syncs the photos on a custom folder (by default is the name of the device but you can change it). I use the XOOM and Nexus S to sync pictures on ubuntu app so they're automatically uploaded to folders such as:

Photos - Nexus S
Photos - Motorola XOOM

[Shadrack]

SMELTN, on 05 December 2012 - 16:33, said:

yeah but with the dropbox auto upload isn't that only for the PC? Or does the "app" version on Android/iOS do that as well now?

The iOS app has the feature as well, but it is not automatic. You have to open the app and then it will prompt you but there is no way to enable some kind of background sync (I don't think).